SBIR-STTR Award

AAM encompasses a wide variety of use cases, including medical transport, emergency response, law enforcement, passenger service, and cargo transport. Cities world-wide are mobilizing to attract AAM service providers with an expectation of economic and humanitarian benefits. However, these benefits accrue only if the AAM network supports viable business cases while meeting operational, regulatory, environmental, and community concerns. We propose to develop a platform to support AAM community integration studies, emphasizing business cases, intermodal connectivity, community and environmental concerns, and safety. This will require fusion of data and analysis tools such as: economic, demographic, terrain, weather, airspace, and vehicle performance. We propose to build a framework for creating and evaluating plans to transition AAM from concept to implementation. We will partner with two leading firms to develop this toolset: one specializing in financial, economic, infrastructure, and demographic information to support business case analysis and investment requirements, and one specializing in environmental analysis to support noise and other environmental studies. Leveraging our expertise in airspace design and modeling, we will produce a toolset capable of creating and evaluating AAM implementation designs. The platform will be extensible through standard interfaces to incorporate other factors. Our proposal responds to Topic A2.03, AAM Integration – specifically by establishing “…a set of tools that could be utilized by local community stakeholders to support the planning, public acceptance, and analysis of various design options to incorporate AAM into the local or regional transportation system,” by providing urban regions with a capability to develop a preliminary design for AAM according to local objectives and constraints. This proposal amplifies the impact of ARMD’s AAM Mission by providing a mechanism to highlight the value of NASA-developed technology. Potential NASA Applications (Limit 1500 characters, approximately 150 words): This capability can help guide NASA research opportunities. Analysis enabled by this tool would highlight the challenges and benefits of AAM implementation plans, helping focus R&D and increase the impact of NASA’s contributions. Potential NASA users include: AAM Mission Integration Office: system studies, communications, advocacy ATM-X, AAM, and RVLT projects: ID high payoff research needs Systems analysis groups at ARC and LaRC: studies of use cases and technology ARMD’s Portfolio Analysis and Management Office: policy, portfolio analysis Potential Non-NASA Applications (Limit 1500 characters, approximately 150 words): This capability can support city, state, and local governments interested in implementing AAM to develop robust designs that promote public and economic benefits and successful businesses. Local and state governments can realize a coherent, interoperable business and regulatory environment. AAM operators and infrastructure investors will be able to optimize services and manage risk. Duration: 6

Phase II will begin by defining a system architecture for an AAM-CIP assessment tool capable of (1) data fusion, (2) airspace adaptation data creation, (3) scenario generation, (4) AAM traffic simulation, (5) metric computation, (6) data visualization, and additional capabilities needed for a successful commercial product. Crown will develop and demonstrate an instantiation of the basic architecture for a use case that addresses the main interests of a representative user developing recommendations for vertiport locations and airspace routes considering travel demand, safety, and noise. The top-level system architecture establishes a data flow from user objectives and requirements to a graphical user interface (GUI) that enables the user to assess the impacts of relevant issues and rapidly explore the trade space of alternatives. The Phase II prototype will include a fully working version of the Airspace Analysis tool developed in Phase I, including a graphical layer for editing vertiport placement, generating routes, and defining AAM airspace. The system architecture will feature a flexible modular capability for product improvements to enhance the capabilities demonstrated in the Phase II prototype. Potential improvements include integration of analytics software; addressing additional community issues such as infrastructure, equity of benefits, and connectivity with other transportation modes; software automation to automatically generate and analyze ranges of inputs and alternatives to map the AAM system trade space or rank alternatives with respect to specified optimization criteria and constraints; integrated exchange of data between models to enable assessment of dependencies across issues; and simulations and displays to present a dynamic real-time or fast-time picture of an AAM operation and its impacts on the population below. Potential NASA Applications (Limit 1500 characters, approximately 150 words): This capability can help guide NASA research opportunities. Analysis enabled by this tool would highlight the challenges and benefits of AAM implementation plans, helping focus R&D and increase the impact of NASA’s contributions. Potential NASA users include: AAM Mission Integration Office: system studies, communications, advocacy ATM-X, AAM, and RVLT projects: ID high payoff research needs Systems analysis groups at ARC and LaRC: studies of use cases and technology Potential Non-NASA Applications (Limit 1500 characters, approximately 150 words): This capability can support city, state, and local governments interested in implementing AAM to develop robust designs that promote public and economic benefits and successful businesses. Local and state governments can realize a coherent, interoperable business and regulatory environment. AAM operators and infrastructure investors will be able to optimize services and manage risk Duration: 24